Hospitals, nursing homes, and other patient care facilities typically include patient monitoring devices at one or more bedsides in the facility. Patient monitoring devices generally include sensors, processing equipment, and displays for obtaining and analyzing a medical patient's physiological parameters such as blood oxygen saturation level, respiratory rate, and the like. Clinicians, including doctors, nurses, and other medical personnel, use the physiological parameters obtained from patient monitors to diagnose illnesses and to prescribe treatments. Clinicians also use the physiological parameters to monitor patients during various clinical situations to determine whether to increase the level of medical care given to patients.
Many patient monitoring devices provide an alarm function that triggers an alarm when certain physiological parameters exceed safe thresholds. Situations giving rise to an alarm might include, for example, decreased heart rate, respiratory rate, or low blood oxygen saturation levels. Alarms enable clinicians to respond rapidly to possible life-threatening situations. Alarms may be audible, visual, or transmitted over a network to locations in a hospital where clinicians are not in direct view of a patient. Alarms and other physiological information are often transmitted to a central nurses' station or the like, where nurses or other clinicians can monitor several patients at once.